Ever since I updated to the latest EOS Utility 2.14.0 (3/13/14), my Apple Airport Extreme has been dropping all wireless devices connected to my home network (i.e. my iphones, ipads, and even my wife's laptop which is connected by wireless only). My wired PC running Windows 8.1 Pro (which is the computer I use for my EOS Utility and Photoshop) still connects to the internet and the wired network, along with other wired devices. However, all wireless devices stop working as soon as this process starts (shortly after logging in).

Through a few agonizing weeks of trying to find out what was causing the issue (I didn't know at the time the issue was related to the EOS Utility update), I discovered accidentally while watching the processes in task manager that a process called Canon EOS UPNP Detector (32 bit) was running and consuming a large portion of my CPU time (15% or more even though I didn't have the EOS Utility running and no camera was connected). I killed the process and, wah lah, my wireless devices reconnected immediately. I could not believe this so I had to repeat it several times to verify this was indeed the culprit. I don't know how or what starts the Canon EOS UPNP Detector process except rebooting the computer. I reboot, the process starts and my Wi-Fi dies. I kill the process and Wi-Fi revives itself. I don't know how to stop this process from starting on boot up, but at least now I can rest assured that I know what is killing my wireless network and stop the process after any reboots.

Anyhow, I though I would post this in case anyone else was pulling their hair out as I was trying to find this annoying bug. I communicated this to Canon tech support and they gave me a case number and are following up on the issue.

I don't know if this bug affects Wi-Fi on other routers or configurations, but it definitely does it on my Airport Extreme (the latest version) and my Windows 8.1 Pro system.

FYI. The Canon process does not start until you log on to the Windows 8.1 Pro PC. If I reboot, but don't log in, my Wi-Fi works fine, but if I log in and the Canon EOS UPNP Detector process starts, my Wi-Fi dies until I kill the process in Task Manager. Also, I had not issues with previous versions of EOS Utility. This all started when 2.14.0 came out which, ironically, was supposed to be the Windows 8.1 compatible version, at least according to the Canon EOS driver web site.

It is the Utility that automatically looks for wireless enabled cameras, either natively like the 6D, or via the WFT accessory. It is clearly a bug in your system configuration.

Thanks for the heads up.

On my Apple systems I have an icon in the top toolbar, a little brown camera, but I can click it and quit it at any time, also if I go to my user preferences it is there as WFT Pairing as a Log In item that I can also disable.

Logged

Too often we lose sight of the fact that photography is about capturing light, if we have the ability to take control of that light then we grow exponentially as photographers. More often than not the image is not about lens speed, sensor size, DR, MP's or AF, it is about the light.

Look in the Windows' Startup folder in the Programs menu, wherever it is in Windows 8, if there's an entry there for the Canon EOS UPNP Detector, send it to the Recycle Bin, you can always restore it from there.

If there's no Startup entry, run msconfig.exe, look for Canon EOS UPNP Detector in the Startup tab, un-check it if you find it.Note that after making any changes with msconfig.exe, at next system boot, you'll be presented with a prompt telling you that changes have been made, asking if you want to keep them. It asks this before you've had the opportunity to decide, so just click yes, you can simply run msconfig.exe and re-check to go back, be greeted with another “changes have been made” prompt at next boot.

Do be cautious switching off things in msconfig.exe that might be essential, some things you can switch off there can really bork things up.

Does the PC have to be on for your other devices to have internet access?If so, it sounds to me now as though the Wi-Fi on your wired Windows 8 PC is the access point for all your other Wi-Fi devices. Don't do that.

Look in the router's configuration screens, what devices are connected to the router? I'm guessing you'll find only the PC is connected to the router, possibly one Wi-Fi connection, possibly a Wi-Fi and a wired connection.If there's only a PC Wi-Fi connection, create a wired connection for the PC so there will be two PC connections to the router.

Turn off the PC's Wi-Fi on the PC, not the router.

Next check to see that the PC still has internet access through it's wired connection, it should.

Next check your other devices for internet access, if my guess is correct, they won't.Get the other devices back on the internet through the router's Wi-Fi, do not switch the PC's Wi-Fi back on to do this.

Now try the EOS Utility, hopefully you can connect the PC to the camera through the router without borking the rest of the network, test and see. If the network borks with the EOS Utility running, turn on the PC's Wi-Fi, delete all connections to other devices through the PC's Wi-Fi, use the PC's Wi-Fi only for the EOS Utility. I'm guessing now, and only guessing, that you shouldn't need the PC's Wi-Fi to use the EOS Utility, but you might find that you have to.--- Don't know about AirPort routers, but with others I've worked with, a wired connection to the router is essential for the initial router setup, setting up passwords and such, once passwords are configured, Wi-Fi devices can then connect to and through the router using those passwords.Router changes can then be made over Wi-Fi, but some of those changes can require a wired connection to get back into the router so it's always best on such routers to always have at least one wired connection available.On my network, the wired connection is through my old PC that hardly ever runs anymore, I only boot that machine to retrieve some file I've forgotten to transfer to my new machine, or to make lower level changes to the router.

Both of my Canon printers are Wi-Fi connected to the network through the router as well as my new PC, my Android phone and my Android tablet. I can easily and seamlessly print from either PC, the phone or the tablet to either printer, it was very easy to set up.

I use DSLRController to connect my 6D to both my phone and tablet (one or the other, not both at the same time), but I use wired tether to do so. I've found 6D Wi-Fi seriously wanting, wired tether solid, stable and much less lag.I briefly tried tethering the 6D with DPP and Lightroom with the PCs, tried EOS Remote with four different Android devices, found a whole lot more functionality with DSLRController so I now use that exclusively for tethering tasks, don't bother about the other choices.

With the Eos utility active, the hub drops all other connections to other devices (phones and pc's)- or become extremely slow and unstable.With the Eos utility disabled in start up and PC rebooted all is fine.

Virgin media support came out and could not identify any network problem.

Does the PC have to be on for your other devices to have internet access?If so, it sounds to me now as though the Wi-Fi on your wired Windows 8 PC is the access point for all your other Wi-Fi devices. Don't do that.

The Canon Wi-Fi utility for my G1X II camera uses a process called Canon Image Transfer Utility, which works thru any attached access point. Mine consumes 0 CPU when not downloading. I use Windows 7 64 bit.As soon as I try to download from the camera to PC via access point, it drops. It uploads to the cloud just fine and seldom drops. I think that the pc software is buggy, I've removed and re-installed it, but no help. I'll be tying a different computer when I get time.

UPDATE:

I reinstalled Windows 7 on my PC along with adding a 500GB MSATA drive. The issue went with the G1X not downloading to my PC reliably went away, so the problem was somewhere in the installed software. Sometimes its easier to reinstall than spending weeks trying to solve a issue, so I reinstall about once a year.

I had the same problem with 2.14. I'm a retired computer programmer, so I have the tools to do network traces to see what was going on. Basically, the 2.14 version installed itself so that it would run automatically at startup (as several other people have already noted). When installed, it was constantly hammering WiFi looking for a camera. Of course, most of us don't have our cameras on all the time, so the utility never found a camera. The utility was consuming almost all of the available WiFi bandwidth. This made it difficult for any other WiFi device to run well (any network activity would be very slow).

I have the same issue. I have found that stopping the offending program Canon UPNP Detector in the Task Manager instantly releases the rest of the network. Simply right click on the bottom of the screen to view the Task Manager, locate the application and stop it using the Stop Process button. This way you can still use the wireless when you want/need it and turn it off so the rest of your network can work.